February 10

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

Who was the subject of an advertisement in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

“Runaway Negroes … going to the Governor.”

For several weeks in January and February 1776, the Virginia Gazette carried an advertisement about a canoe recovered from “some runaway Negroes” making their way down the James River.  John Watkins described the canoe and noted that the enslaved men also possessed “sundry Clothes, some of which were stolen, and have since been claimed by the Owners.”  He assumed that the remaining clothes belonged to the enslaved men.  Watkins offered the canoe to its rightful owner and the clothes to the enslavers of the Black men who sought to liberate themselves.  He did not, however, indicate that those men had been captured and imprisoned until their enslavers claimed them.  Perhaps the men managed to make their escape when Watkins seized the canoe.

Whatever happened, Watkins believed that the men “were going to Governor.”  That detail meant a lot to eighteenth-century readers of the Virginia Gazette and even more to enslaved people residing in the colony.  On November 7, 1775, John Murray, the earl of Dunmore and royal governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that declared martial law in the colony.  He hoped to restore order as the fighting that started at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts spread to Virginia.  To that end, he “declare[d] all indented Servants, Negroes, or others, (appertaining to Rebels,) free that are able and willing to bear Arms, they joining His MAJESTY’s Troops as soon as may be.”  In other words, Dunmore offered freedom to enslaved people (and indentured servants and other unfree laborers) who fled from their enslavers, joined his forces, and fought for the king (but only those Black people enslaved by Patriots since the governor did not want to alienate Loyalists).  As word spread, enslaved men, women, and children flocked to Dunmore’s lines.  The men who stole the canoe that Watkins advertised had good reason for acting when they did.  They recognized what may very well have been their best possible chance to make good on their escape and achieve freedom.  As colonizers complained about their figurative enslavement by Parliament, enslaved people saw this offer by the British as a beacon of liberty.  Several months later, the Declaration of Independence counted Lord Dunmore’s Proclamation among the many grievances against George III.  The charge that the king “has excited domestic insurrections amongst us” referred to Dunmore’s efforts to rally enslaved people to join him in fighting against the “Rebels” who opposed the king.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 10, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (February 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Dixon and Hunter] (February 10, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published February 10, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (February 10, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (February 10, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Ledger (February 10, 1776).

February 9

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

“He remains the publick’s most obedient humble servant.”

When Archibald Diddep, a tailor in Williamsburg, wanted his customers to settle accounts, he resorted to an advertisement in Alexander Purdie’s Virginia Gazette.  Merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and even printers frequently placed advertisements calling on their customers to pay for the goods and services they purchased on credit.  Sometimes they threatened legal action against those who did not submit payment shortly after such notices appeared in the public prints.  Diddep, on the other hand, used another strategy.

The tailor devised an advertisement that expressed his appreciation to his customers and solicited further business among the readers of the Virginia Gazette, nestling his address to those who owed him money among those other aspects of his notice.  He opened by stating that he “RETURNS his employers in general, and his old customers in particular, the most cordial thanks for past services.”  He then pledged that he “shall be ready to axecute any command which they may hereafter intrust him with.”  Yet he also wanted them to be aware of his circumstances that made it especially important that they make timely payment for the good service they received from the tailor.  “As his family is extensive, journeymens wages very high, and his creditors exceedingly solicitous for their due,” Diddep explained, “he hopes those whose accounts have been long standing will not take it amiss should he earnestly entreat them to make immediate payment.”  In other words, he did wish to bother customers who owed him money, but he wanted them to understand that he had a large family to feed, employees who earned a good living to pay, and creditors who were pressuring him.  The tailor hoped such appeals, playing on sympathy, would prove more effective than threatening to sue.  He also introduced a new policy, announcing that he expected customers “will not hesitate to tender down the cash so soon as their work is done” in the future.  Diddep politely discontinued credit at his shop.  Even with that softer touch, he did not conclude by focusing on finances.  Instead, he seized one last opportunity to generate business and highlight the quality of the service he provided.  “Ladies riding habits are still made by him,” he reminded readers.  For those who would give him business, he “remains the publick’s most obedient humble servant.”  It was a much softer approach than other newspaper notices that demanded customers settle accounts.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 9, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Connecticut Gazette (February 9, 1776).

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Connecticut Gazette (February 9, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

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Virginia Gazette [Purdie] (February 9, 1776).

February 8

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

GUEST CURATOR:  Emma Guthrie

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-York Journal (February 8, 1776).

“A NEW and CORRECT EDITION, (Printed on a good paper) of … COMMON SENSE.”

This advertisement for “COMMON SENSE” promoted a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine.  In one of the most important documents in American history, Paine argued for the independence of the colonies from Great Britain.  John Anderson, a printer in New York, published this edition of Common Sense.  He noted that his edition was “Printed on a good paper.”

Due to the nonimportation agreements of the 1760s and 1770s, “the residual of imported paper was nearly exhausted” when the Revolutionary War began in 1775.[1]  Paper used in printing pamphlets and newspapers had been an incredibly common import.  However, due to the nonimportation agreements, paper became a scarce commodity.  According to Eugenie Andruss Leonard in “Paper as a Critical Commodity during the American Revolution,” the domestic manufacture of paper was not sufficient and could not keep up with the demand for the product.[2] Anderson attempted to make his “NEW and CORRECT EDITION” of Common Sense stand out by stating that it was printed on “good paper,” enticing readers to purchase his pamphlet without having to worry about the quality of the printing and, especially, the paper.

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ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY:  Carl Robert Keyes

I was excited when Emma selected Anderson’s advertisement for his edition of Common Sense to feature on the Adverts 250 Project.  I encouraged students enrolled in my capstone research seminar in Fall 2025 to peruse previous entries in the project, but I did not discuss with them which advertisements I planned to feature in the coming months. When Emma chose this advertisement, she did not know that I would craft a series of entries about the marketing of Common Sense in the winter and spring of 1775.

Emma could have selected any one of three advertisements for Common Sense that appeared in the February 8, 1776, edition of the New-York Journal.  William Green inserted a version of the advertisement he originally placed in the January 22 edition of the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury.  Green stocked and sold Robert Bell’s unauthorized “Second Edition,” having previously advertised Bell’s first edition.  Another advertisement encouraged readers to reserve copies of a “NEW EDITION (with LARGE and INTERESTING ADDITIONS …)” that Paine did authorize and entrusted to William Bradford and Thomas Bradford to print.  Much of it replicated the advertisement that ran in the January 25 edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post, including an address “To the PUBLIC” that explained that “the Publisher of the first edition” printed a second edition without the permission of the author.  That edition would not include the new material that Paine arranged for the Bradfords to feature in their edition.  The advertisement in the Pennsylvania Evening Post also noted, “A German edition is likewise in the press,” acknowledging the significant population of German settlers in Pennsylvania and the backcountry.  The version in the New-York Journal, however, changed that note to “A Dutch Edition is likewise in the Press” for the benefit of those families who continued to speak Dutch a little more than a century after the English conquest of New Netherland.

Anderson’s advertisement confirmed what he advertised in his own Constitutional Gazette the previous day: publication of a “NEW and CORRECT EDITION” of Common Sense.  It was the first edition published outside Philadelphia.  Given that the Bradfords’ edition was still “In the PRESS,” Anderson published a local edition of Bell’s edition.  Describing it as “NEW” meant that it was a local edition and describing it as “CORRECT” indicated that Anderson had faithfully reproduced the contents of the original pamphlet.  Emma focused on another important aspect of Anderson’s advertisement.  All the previous advertisements for Common Sense focused on the contents (especially those that listed the section headings) or the dispute between Bell and Paine and which edition readers should consider the superior one.  Anderson was the first to focus on a material aspect of the pamphlet, assuring prospective customers that he used “good paper” when printing his local edition.  The quality of the finished product rivaled any of the pamphlets shipped to New York from Philadelphia.

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[1] Eugenie Andruss Leonard, “Paper as a Critical Commodity during the American Revolution,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 74, no. 4 (October 195): 488.

[2] Larsen, “Paper as a Critical Commodity,” 488.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 8, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Maryland Gazette (February 8, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (February 8, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 8, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published February 8, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-York Journal (February 8, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 8, 1776).

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New-York Journal (February 8, 1776).

February 7

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Constitutional Gazette (February 7, 1776).

“A new and correct Edition, of that justly esteemed Pamphlet, called COMMON SENSE.”

As Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, hawked an unauthorized second edition and William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers who collaborated with Paine to publish a new edition with additional content prepared that edition for press, an advertisement for the first edition of Common Sense published beyond Philadelphia appeared in the February 7, 1776, issue of the Constitutional Gazette in New York.  John Anderson, the printer of the Constitutional Gazette, ran a notice announcing, “Tomorrow will be published, & sold by the Printer hereof, A new and correct Edition, of that justly esteemed Pamphlet, called COMMON SENSE; ADDRESSED TO THE INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.”  His advertisement did not go into greater detail about the contents.  Anderson knew very well that other advertisements in the Constitutional Gazette and other newspapers published in New York provided an overview of the sections in Bell’s first edition.  The “justly esteemed Pamphlet” required no further introduction.

Only four weeks passed between Bell’s advertisement promoting the publication of Common Sense in the January 9, 1776, edition of the Pennsylvania Evening Post and Anderson informing readers in New York that they could purchase a local edition.  His newspaper carried the first advertisement for Common Sense in New York, listing William Green, a bookseller, as Bell’s local agent for distributing the pamphlet.  Anderson likely acquired a copy from Green, either purchasing it or accepting it in lieu of payment for the advertisement.  His advertisement for his “new and correct Edition” did not mention the dispute and controversy around the publication of Bell’s unauthorized edition that unfolded in Philadelphia in newspaper advertisements there, though he had likely seen some of those notices.  After all, printers carefully perused newspapers printed in other cities to select content to reprint in their own newspapers.  Anderson focused solely on giving the public greater access to Common Sense (and generating revenue in his printing office).  His local edition met with sufficient success that he eventually published a second edition.

Slavery Advertisements Published February 7, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Constitutional Gazette (February 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 7, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (February 7, 1776).